Annie Sweeney remembers her 2004 precinct caucus: Just her and one more in her age cohort, with virtually everyone else above 45.
The Minnesota State University senior says students don’t caucus because they are anti-party and feel disenfranchised.
Well, yeah, Sweeney doesn’t necessarily disagree. She admits that she thinks politicians are pretty much crooks.
But she knows that the answer to feeling powerless isn’t to sulk, but to grab the reins of party power when they’re offered.
Still, caucus night can be a tough sell, especially with advice like “brush up on Robert’s Rules of Order,” “be prepared to stay late” and the ever-enticing “bring a calculator.”
A pair of statewide groups advocating for gay rights sent representatives to MSU Tuesday to offer a nonpartisan primer on how to caucus. Mankato was the last stop on an eight-city caucus workshop tour.
The efforts are aimed toward communicating the values of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community to political leaders, said Monica Meyer, public policy director for Outfront Minnesota.
She said Outfront isn’t telling students who to vote for, only helping them to get their voice heard. The Human Rights Campaign also put on the event.
The workshop showed about a dozen students and others that caucusing is more than just helping to decide a party’s nominee. It plays a role in actually shaping the party’s policy platform and sending delegates to local, state and national conventions.
Junior Kelsey Doll entered the workshop knowing zero about how to caucus and left knowing how to write a resolution and elect delegates.
“It seems like a good way to get our voice heard and be more involved,” she said.
This is the first year Outfront has put major efforts toward caucus readiness. And it might be the first year, at least in a long time, that Mankato’s caucuses will help decide who gets nominated.
It, along with the rest of the state’s caucuses, has been moved up to Feb. 5 from the traditional March date.
In addition to the procedural preparation, the workshop had another message: Don’t be too intimidated to speak your mind, especially about issues important to gays and lesbians.
Meyer said a lot of people feel very personal about issues such as same-sex marriage and are afraid that they’ll be shouted down in a raucous caucus. But she said that wasn’t her experience.
Democracy, she said, is better served if more people do it, regardless of which party they support.
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